This year I have been keeping a reading journal. It is just a blank journal, but I keep track of what I read each month and write my thoughts down on the books that I finish. This allows me to be blunt, honest, and able to scream and gush about my interests in a controlled fashion. I rank the book that I read between 1 and 5 stars depending on what I thought of it. It will be thrilling to go back through it at the end of the year and relive my adventures.

Anyway, while reviewing my reads for April I noticed that I had a trend going. Usually I read a variety of genres. In April I seem to have stuck to only one in particular, with one exception. I wish to share my reads with you, Dear Reader, and perhaps you can guess which one is not like the others!

Lock Every Door by Riley Sager

I am a sucker for a good Gothic thriller and Lock Every Door provided what I sought. I will admit outright that the main character in this one is not the brightest bulb in the shack. She is the epitome of a stereotypical horror movie character that never spots the red flags and makes all of the wrong choices. But if she made the correct choices would we actually have a good thrilling tale? Probably not. Sometimes the characters need to make the wrong choices so that we, the readers, can be entertained.

Jules is down on her luck. She lost her job, her boyfriend cheated on her, she lost her apartment, and now she is sleeping on her best friend’s couch with barely a penny to her name. When Jules reads an ad in the paper for an apartment sitting job at the prestigious Bartholomew she believes it to be too good to be true. The Bartholomew is one of the oldest apartment buildings in New York, home to the rich and famous and impossible to access. Jules applies and gets the job. She finds herself living in luxury on the top floor of the building, getting a very nice paycheck, a gorgeous view of Central Park, and she even has her very own gargoyle statue outside of her bedroom window. An added perk is the very attractive doctor living in the apartment next door. The Bartholomew, however, may not be all it seems. Jules soon finds out about its dark past and that previous apartment sitters have been disappearing. Can Jules uncover the truth of The Bartholomew before she becomes the next victim?

I want to say I obsessed over this one for a while and I very highly recommend it. Just the setting had me. I could imagine myself living there. (I have a thing for Gothic settings, no matter how creepy). The mystery was very consuming and the threat had me almost biting my nails and wanting to scream at the main character to not do certain things that were sure to result in something bad happening. I thoroughly enjoyed this one and I hope you will as well, Dear Reader.

Click HERE to request Lock Every Door!

Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann

Killers of the Flower Moon has been a very popular book for some time now, with good reason. I am kicking myself that it has taken me so long to read it! I read The Wager, also by David Grann, and enjoyed that one so I decided to give Killers of the Flower Moon a try. The reason I never picked it up before was because I was under the incorrect impression that it took place in the 1970s/1980s for some reason. I just do not vibe with anything past the 1960s historical nonfiction-wise. I have no idea where I got this incorrect idea from. Killers of the Flower Moon really takes place in the late 1800s-1930s. I enjoyed being transported to the setting where cars were a new invention and people still rode horses. The story was very sad, but I believe it is a story that needs to be known.

Killers of the Flower Moon tells the story of perhaps one of the sickest murder conspiracies in the history of the United States. This conspiracy almost wiped out the whole Osage Tribe. This is a tale of money, greed, and evil. Due to a treaty, the Osage received the money from any oil found on their land. There was a lot of it. They lived the high life with servants and mansions. But all was not as glamorous as it seemed. The greedy white man made it so that each Osage individual had to be managed by a “guardian”. This “guardian” was a white male that controlled all of the individual’s finances. The Osage had to ASK if they could use their own money. What a revolting system. The “guardians” also misused this authority to rob their charges blind. For some, robbery was not enough. Many of these “guardians” decided murder would be a far easier way to gain control of the wealth. To penetrate this intricate web of murder and lies, an FBI agent by the name of Tom White and his undercover men entered Osage Territory to put an end to the continuous stream of death. Can they get to the bottom of this conspiracy and track down the ringleaders?

This sad tale takes many twists and turns and has you guessing to the very end. It was recently made into a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, but I enjoyed the book more. Just when I thought that I knew who the murderers were, another twist would come up. I think that this period of history should be taught in schools. As greed continues to rule, we need to remember what a very destructive force it is. I think this true story can teach a lot and it was also a very enjoyable read.

Click HERE to request Killers of the Flower Moon!

Frozen in Time by Owen Beattie and John Geiger

Do you like history? Do you like true crime? Are you obsessed with The Franklin Expedition? Well, then this book is for you! (Disclaimer: no, you do not have to be obsessed with The Franklin Expedition to read this book, but I am). If you are looking for the full story on the expedition, this book is not for you. The authors seem to expect the reader to have some previous knowledge of the story. Frozen in Time is more a forensic/archaeological study of evidence pertaining to the theory that lead poisoning was a contributing downfall to the deaths of all involved. Owen Beattie leads a team of archaeologists to see if they can locate any remains of those who died on the expedition. Surprisingly, there are bones still scattered about the tundra that belonged to these doomed men. The idea is to test the lead levels in the bones and compare those levels with someone who does not have lead poisoning. The results were incredible.

What fascinated me most about Frozen in Time was the dig on Beechy Island. Beechy Island is the one place where we can be certain of who was buried there out of all the men of The Franklin Expedition. Erebus and Terror spent their first winter docked here and the first deaths occurred here. Having time, health, and resources, the crew were able to give these men proper burials with caskets, headstones, and engravings. Beattie’s team were able to exhume the bodies of John Torrington, John Hartnell, and William Braine. What was so amazing was that these men looked to have died yesterday! There was no rigor mortis. They were kept so very fresh beneath the permafrost (images are included in this book, not for the squeamish). It was all very touching to be able to see and understand these young men from over one hundred years ago. These were real people, not some fictional adventurers. Autopsies were performed on the bodies to see how these men perished. I will not go into it here, but leave it for you, Dear Reader, to discover in this fascinating read: Frozen in Time.

I was pulled into the history of the Franklin Expedition through the novel The Terror by Dan Simmons. It just fascinates me that all of these people just vanished into the Arctic never to be seen again. It stirs my imagination. I also find their strength and drive for survival to be very inspiring. I guess in a weird way it helps to think about The Franklin Expedition when I am going through a hard time in my life. I may not be pulling life boats over the Arctic ice, but sometimes life feels like that. In some twisted way, it is therapeutic to learn about these people for me.

Frozen in Time is available in the WisCat catalogue and is not in the Monarch Library System. Click HERE to go to WisCat to request a copy!

Code Girls by Liza Mundy

I had once blogged about the book The Woman All Spies Fear about Elizabeth Freidman being one of the first and best female code breakers. I REALLY enjoyed that one, I still highly recommend it. Since that title was so enjoyable I decided to give Code Girls a go. Code Girls explores the stories of a number of Code Girls during WWI and WWII. I really enjoyed the snippets that are given about the lives of these ladies. These ladies paved the way for all of us women to have professional careers. It was delightful to ride along with them as they moved to the big city, adjusted to their new living conditions, and worked in areas so vital to the war effort. What these women had to go through to be treated as equals to men was mind boggling. I truly appreciate their strength and drive as they opened the door for the rest of us women to follow.

I admit, some of the actual mathematical stuff in this book made my brain tired. I prefer reading non-fiction about people, history, and culture. Math makes my brain fuzzy. The actual human stories Code Girls does provide are very memorable. Dot is one code girl that is featured more than the others. As an old woman she was interviewed about her experiences for this book. We learn about her work, her life, her dramas, her loves, and her adventures. It was hard for her to share her story as all the code girls had been sworn to absolute secrecy. If they told anyone about what they did they would be punished. Dot was given the permission to speak, but even then the secrecy was so ingrained she found it hard at first. I really am grateful to these women. They truly paved the way for us. Trigger warning: The sexism in this book is insulting and angering. I cannot believe men treated women like this in the 1940s. We have made great strides for equality. Let us hope we never move backwards.

Click HERE to request Code Girls!

So, Dear Readers, which title is not like the others? If you said Lock Every Door, then you would be correct. Thankfully Lock Every Door is fiction and never happened (hopefully never will) but sometimes we need frivolous horror that cannot really hurt us in this crazy world we live in. Killers of the Flower Moon and Frozen in Time presented all too real horrors. Sometimes nice, safe, fictional horror is a good palette cleanser. Sometimes reality causes one to wish that the ghosts and monsters under the bed were real. They could not possibly be as terrifying as what walks out there in the sun.